The concept is based on a traditional three-piece wheel design, consisting of an inner, outer and centre disc. The difference with this concept is that the centre disc is made from two pieces. One piece, the support structure, is manufactured from forged aluminium to create a fine, strong and lightweight wheel structure. The second piece can be manufactured from a limitless number of materials including timber, rubber, silicone, plastic etc. As this second piece is not required to support vehicle load, it can be of interesting design and material composition.
Of the three potential market applications that initially sprung to mind, the first market would be for luxury or expensive modified cars requiring custom wheel sets with a unique point of difference. These consumers would be able to work with sincro to create a unique disc design that reflects the style of their vehicle. This unique piece could then be machined from a material of the customer's choice, including decorative timbers.
The second would be tuner/race/modified vehicle enthusiasts who wish to modify wheels to be unique in design/style/colour. Here, people would be able to use an online service to select from a number of component configurations in order to 'customise' a personal set of wheels to reflect their style and taste. In addition to this the outer shell could be manufactured from molded plastic to exploit the light weight design of this wheel and create optimal aero-dynamic effect of the wheel's disc.
The third option is similar in ways to the second, in that the wheel's outer and supporting structure would be standard components and the outer shell would be manufactured from molded plastic. In this application, the wheels would be utilised by automotive manufacturers as an 'optional extra', where they could offer the consumer, likely of a younger generation, the opportunity to customise the wheels to match the rest of their vehicle, style and taste. This application has a real potential as the demand increases for standard, yet 'culture specific' automotive components. This variation could be considered as an improved contemporary version of the hubcap.
Feel free to leave a comment. Anyone, it's getting lonely over here haha.
Brad
Looks good Brad, love the orange black! What do you think the RRP would be roughly? And do you think it will be a good enough price to compete in the market place?
ReplyDeleteYeah good question, to be honest I dont really know. It depends largely on who tey are bring sold to. In the first application, the wheels would be made to represent a high quality unique image and therefore the wheels would be available in any disc, width, offset and stud pattern the customer chooses. If done like this, the wheels would be deisgned to compete with other high end aftermarket wheel manufacturers. For example, a new set of CCWs (http://www.ccwheel.com/wheelprofiles-display.php?id=C2K) start from US $2800 no tyres or anthing. Luckily some people's cars are part of their family lol.
ReplyDeleteIt would be cool to make up a prototype set for your car, although I imagine it may not be that cheap to start with haha
ReplyDeletelooks really good brad, cool idea. Im looking forward to getting back and moving towards something like this.
ReplyDeleteIf it helps people over here spend a lot of money on shitty lookin rims, so i could only infer that they would also spend a lot of money on good looking/unique/awesome rims too?